Nice Female Rock Band! The Warning

[Audiofire]

Despite the venue, not metal, not at all.

Latest album is heavier than many alternative rock bands. Heavy metal is relative to other rock music. Led Zeppelin was "heavy metal".

 

[Axo1989]

Latest album is heavier than many alternative rock bands. Heavy metal is relative to other rock music. Led Zeppelin was "heavy metal".

Haha, now you made me listen to the whole length of the Wacken segment I posted (for sure if I listen harder I can detect more metal-adjacent flavours in the riffage). And consult: my dad agrees they considered Zeppelin along with Sabbath (and less-remembered acts like Iron Butterfly and Steppenwolf) to be seminal metal bands back in the day. Certainly genre-categorisation is subject to relativities and reference points (to me Sabbath sound like metal, but Zeppelin sound like rock). He also reckons they used 'hard rock' and 'heavy metal' somewhat interchangeably then.

Consider that I was merely a teenager in the 00s and we had punk-infused metalcore, deathcore and math-rock as baselines. So if music doesn't have (at least some of) curtains of distortion/overdrive, double-speed kick-drum, deep baselines and fair lashings of screamo/growlo then it's rock, not (a) metal (sub-genre) to my ear.

The Warning have some nice hard-rock riffage, quite slow drumming and entirely harmonious vocalisation (with maybe the odd snarl). Also, where is the dark thematic material that metal genres require? To me, lacking the thematics it's less heavy/more mainstream than even the nu-metal/electropop fusion of Poppy (or Grimes at her heaviest, or both together):

Spoiler: Play Destroy

Footnote: the BMTHxBabymetal track posted above was of course the former returning to roots after some (quite successful: Sempiternal was a no.1 album here circa 2013) hard rock releases that they referred to as 'pop' and so sent up their genre-heresy and negative metalcore fan reactions, especially with this riposte:

Spoiler: Heavy Metal

 

[amirm]

Looks like you want to criticise me for not liking some music you like?

No, like me is wondering why your opinion of who or what they are matters. Do you have some authority in the field or just upset that some like this music and you don't?

 

[amirm]

too bland and slow-paced, not much in the way of imagination or interesting sonic textures, etc.

Yeh right....

 

[amirm]

For me there's nothing really interesting going on with The Warning.

That is more on you than the band. Let's hear from a music teacher:

 

[Axo1989]

No, like me is wondering why your opinion of who or what they are matters. Do you have some authority in the field or just upset that some like this music and you don't?

No, I'm not upset that people like The Warning at all. In that same post of mine that you replied to, I said:

"Some get great pleasure from well-produced, well-performed standard repertoire, just not me. If you are one of those people ... then go for it and enjoy. There's no reason not to."

 

[Doodski]

Yeh right....

LoL... I was not aware that you like this type of music. I am looking for a few progressive metal supergroup tracks that have a guitar, drum sound and speed (bpm) sorta like The Warrant (But without the pretty females... lol.) and I had like maybe a dozen tabs of tunes open and I clicked on The Warrant Six Feet Under link that you posted and I was about to post it for you because it's so good until I realized I am listening to your link... gg* Otherwise I am posting some prog metal rock stuff here, here and here with strong keyboards and it is produced like The Warrant in that it is very active, faster and is also a bit more technical. Maybe you might like this stuff too<?> It sure would be cool if you dig prog rock/metal too.

 

[Axo1989]

Ok while you imply no-one should be interested in my opinion, you manage three rapid-fire responses.

We've dealt with the question of whether I'm just upset that some like this music. Clearly, I'm not. On the other question of authority/expertise to comment, forum threads will provoke discussion (naturally) and I just happen to think the question of "what is rock/hard rock/metal?" in terms of this group is an interesting tangent. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. Responding to my earlier post @Audiofire gave an interesting historical counterpoint which I examined further and think has merit. Otoh both you and @Caldera dive straight into a credentials fallacy which is beneath you both.

Informative background after listening to them Choke upthread. Their affection for throwback-rock derives from admiration for Gilmour and others. Easy to see why some of the old-timers here like it, but not my cup of tea, too bland and slow-paced, not much in the way of imagination or interesting sonic textures, etc. You can indeed hear their professed K-pop influence in the harmonies though.

Yeh right....

You quoted the bold snippet only, but there was context. When it comes to aesthetic responses, we know de gustibus non est disputandum. So discussing "imagination or interesting sonic textures" is nuanced and subjective. Which doesn't prevent us considering objective characteristics of artistic work, just not asserting objective superiority of same. We can measure "pace" of course: The Warning's track Choke (subject of our recent posts) measures 88 bpm, while the similarly moody first track of BMTH's Sempiternal (the album I mentioned directly above) measures 171 bpm. We'd have to broaden the analysis to cover the discography but the generalisation that some music is faster-paced (per track or on a sub-genre basis) is obviously measurable. It's simply a fact that can inform preference, but equally obviously says nothing about value vs a different preference.

That is more on you than the band. Let's hear from a music teacher:

The music teacher makes my argument: pointing to a little vocal effect (standard stuff) a guitar he likes, a vocal crescendo or two he likes, and a short snare drum effect. In other words, it's a straightforward presentation with few elements and not much sonic or compositional complexity. Not usually my cup of tea, it's too simple and clean. But it's well executed (in terms of both playing and singing) and he's happy, presumably you are too. There's no reason you shouldn't be.

 

[Caldera]

It seems to me that you would be a suitable candidate for participation in experimental research projects of Professor Bill Thompson, Macquarie University, Sydney.

 

[Axo1989]

Can't tell if that's an unusually creepy personal attack? Let's assume it isn't:

These findings are consistent with a study in which fans and non-fans listened to 60-s excerpts of death metal and reported their emotional responses to the music using quantitative and qualitative measures (Thompson et al., 2019). After listening to the excerpts, fans reported: 1) a decrease in negative affect, including tension; and 2) an increase in positive affect, including energy, enjoyment, engagement, empowerment, joy, wonder, nostalgia, peace and transcendence. This pattern was the converse for non-fans who reported decreased positive affect and increased negative affect (e.g., tension, fear, anger).

I don't really listen to death metal (metalcore is a distinct genre, and nu-metal/electropop fusion is somewhere else entirely, at least half the time) but I wonder if this isn't at least somewhat true of any cohort listening to music we like, vs music we don't like? From memory I think 60 seconds of exposure to certain blues or country selections will induce feelings of depression and alienation (for me) but I hear some other people love it.

 

[Caldera]

My reply was by no means intended to be a creepy personal attack. After some slightly awkward comments and responses, I searched for the latest scientific literature on metal music and came across this paper. In my opinion, an important hypothesis of the authors is that heavy metal fans are nice people and derive positive emotions from listening to metal music. In contrast, heavy metal music tends to cause stress and negative feelings in people who are more averse to this music genre. A problem with previous experimental studies on the effects of metal music on listeners' moods was the failure to consider this insight when selecting and categorizing participants. Since you seem to be very interested in more in-depth analyses of music genres and apparently live in Australia, I’ve linked the paper from the researchers in Sydney.

I listen to music from many genres, ranging from Shakespeare metal, hard rock, rock, blues rock, blues, country, pop, dancefloor, techno, all the way to classical music. However, German Schlager music doesn’t come out of my speakers.

 

[Axo1989]

My reply was by no means intended to be a creepy personal attack.

Thanks for clarifying, it's sometimes hard to judge tone/intention from forum text.

I also wondered if you were using a translator or probabilistic text generator to read/reply. I'm not sure how well my text survives such processes (I haven't tried them myself).

After some slightly awkward comments and responses, I searched for the latest scientific literature on metal music and came across this paper. In my opinion, an important hypothesis of the authors is that heavy metal fans are nice people and derive positive emotions from listening to metal music. In contrast, heavy metal music tends to cause stress and negative feelings in people who are more averse to this music genre. A problem with previous experimental studies on the effects of metal music on listeners' moods was the failure to consider this insight when selecting and categorizing participants. Since you seem to be very interested in more in-depth analyses of music genres and apparently live in Australia, I’ve linked the paper from the researchers in Sydney.

The paper was an interesting read. Yes I found the same conclusion and quoted in my last post.

I listen to music from many genres, ranging from Shakespeare metal, hard rock, rock, blues rock, blues, country, pop, dancefloor, techno, all the way to classical music. However, German Schlager music doesn’t come out of my speakers.

I haven't actually heard of Shakespeare metal? My older sister had a Belgian boyfriend who listened to (and also played it iirc) a kind of metal played on traditional medieval instruments (but I can't remember what they called it) is that similar? I agree on Schlager music, my exposure was very brief.

 

[Caldera]

Thanks for clarifying, it's sometimes hard to judge tone/intention from forum text.

I also wondered if you were using a translator or probabilistic text generator to read/reply. I'm not sure how well my text survives such processes (I haven't tried them myself).



The paper was an interesting read. Yes I found the same conclusion and quoted in my last post.



I haven't actually heard of Shakespeare metal? My older sister had a Belgian boyfriend who listened to (and also played it iirc) a kind of metal played on traditional medieval instruments (but I can't remember what they called it) is that similar? I agree on Schlager music, my exposure was very brief.
[/QUOTE]

Really crazy stuff IMO, here is a youtube link: